Immense deposits of kimmeridge clay, containing the oil-bearing bands or seams, stretch across England from Dorsetshire to Lincolnshire. [An early political recognition of the native resource. The Geological Survey had identified the inflammable oil shale in reports since at least 1888.]

I look like a down-and-out drunk who has been picked out of the gutter in the Strand.

When they told me that by the year 2100 women would rule the world, my reply was 'Still?'

Luckily ... there were Zulus and Afghans, also the Dervishes in the Soudan. Some of these might, if they were well-disposed, 'put up a show' some day.

When you get a thing the way you want it, leave it alone.

In all the twelve years I was at school no one ever succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet.

At the depths of that dusty soul there is nothing but abject surrender.